NASA really is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to its lunar plans. Its SLS system is a disaster, but pork barrel politics means it can't ditch it. So it lives on, zombie-like, to suck the life and money out of better options.
Meanwhile, it's placed all its eggs in a SpaceX basket. That company is run by someone who routinely exaggerates timelines for delivery and fails to meet them. Guess what? It's happening again. A commenter on the OP article sums up what SpaceX has to do before humans can go back to the Moon.
Re-light Starship engines
Achieve stable orbit
Dock with another Starship
Transfer propellant
Use transferred propellant
Dock with Orion and/or Dragon
Design a life support system for a volume much larger than Dragon
Yes, most of us have a concept of those things. We also have a concept of how many times since then the government has said 'totally doing it again for reals this time you gusy! Just a few years1!'
Only because he demanded it. Those of us actually working on it just had a bunch of extra work to do indulging his fantasy while simultaneously doing the actual work of reality.
not to me. I would like us to work on robotics to build stuff that could be used when we send people out again or mining and such. would love to have them work on a lunar space elevator to work out the tech.
I have to suspect a lunar orbiter would be more practical for lunar base building and fueling further missions than a lunar space elevator, wouldn't you need angular momentum from rotation to keep it rigid?
Weren't they talking about building a space station orbiting the moon? We've been to the moon. If we're not building a station there, let's move on to next steps. If we are building a station there, why not send equipment and robots down first to prep it while we figure out the logistics of doing something we did 55 years ago.